Wednesday, July 29, 2009

Non-Muslim women police officers issued with 'multi-faith' hijab

Cranmer has been up all night trying to sort geeky issues, and he is not a geek. He is immeasurably grateful to his loyal communicants who assisted him, and apologises to all for the brevity of this post, but he is somewhat pressed for time as a result of the technical inconvenience.

It appears that Avon and Somerset Constabulary is equipping its female officers with a uniform issue hijab to wear when they enter a mosque. However, these are not intended purely to cater for Muslim cultural sensibilities but are 'multi-faith'.

They are intended to 'respect the cultural and religious practices of local communities'.

This is the force which, in 2006, used positive discrimination to try to increase the number of female and ethnic minority officers, randomly excluding 186 white male applicants during a recruitment drive on the grounds that they were already over-represented.

The PCs have gone PC mad.

Cranmer looks forward to hear of them issuing 'multi-faith' turbans and kippahs.

Given that Roman Catholic Canon Law still states (much as it is ignored) that all women must cover their heads in Church will these Constables also be given multi-faith Mantillas? Or, indeed, multi-faith wide-brimmed hats for entering the more traditional Anglican churches?

Your Grace, these are but the minor inconveniences necessary to the successful implementation of the multicultural, multi-faith society, and be in no doubt, Your Grace, our political masters will make the multicultural society work if it’s the last thing they do, no matter how crazy this country becomes.

Give up! Go out and stock up on hijabs and the full regalia for your wives and girlfriends it will be compulsory soon.You have no choice but to vote for the BNP.Itis not ideal at all and you can thank the pathetic weak tory and labour parties if the BNP get asignificant increase in votes.Therewill be no alternative for anyonewho wants this madness stopped.You all have very short term historicalmemories .This has happened beforein a country nearby!Wake up to yourselves before it's too late.

I can't see any problem with police or anybody else behaving respectfully towards people and their customs. If that requires WPCs to wear a scarf when they enter a mosque, what would be the difference from police (or anybody else) taking off their shoes when they enter a mosque? It's just plain good manners, and I wish our police demonstrated more of that.

But perhaps you disagree.

It would be really sinister if the Constabulary forbade them from entering mosques at all.

Hijabs for non-Muslims eh! Another titbit thrown to the crocodile, but it has an insatiable appetite so what's next? Full Muslim uniforms to be worn by Muslim officers for all duties? Yum Yum!What, still hungry? Now it wants full regalia for Muslims in the Armed Forces, Prison Service, NHS etc. Oh, dear God no - please - not ermine trimmed burkas in the House of Lords!

If the Politically Correct keep feeding the croc maybe they'll be the last to be eaten by it.

Dr Cranmer, but would you consider these hajabs correct for a traditional Anglican church? Are you sure my proposal for a multi-faith wide-brimmed hat is not a way forward for the police of a truly modern Britain?

Good to hear that the police are no longer recruiting for effectiveness, but for ideology. One reason why I despair of the British Left is their tendency to treat state institutions as a source of patronage, as ways to reward their tribal allies and injure their many, many perceived enemies, rather than as tools paid for by the taxpayer to do a job.

So, let's do the same. Let's reintroduce patronage. Let's sack all the lefties, just for a laugh, for being unpatriotic -- as they are. Let's impose entry requirements which exclude them and their supporters.

Until conservatives start doing unto them as they do unto us, the left will continue to engage in these abusive practices.

In Catholic countries (Spain, the Vatican, &c), it was "strongly suggested" that women wear a mantilla when going into a Catholic church (up until a while back).

"And how about a multi-faith crucifix?"

I'd settle for a multi-faith Cross of St George.

"... but then considered that these hijabs could function as such ..."

Mantillas are typically lace, so a hijab wouldn't do.

In the spirit of "multi-faith ecumenism", I offer my usual brilliant solution: constables will be issued a "multi-faith kit", consisting of the 7 or 8 faith-approved headdresses (not excluding the Sikh turban), in versions both male and female, so that they might be properly attired should the need arise for handling a disturbance in a mosque, cathedral, village church, temple, or other House of Worship.

This kit would include the various Holy Books, so they'd be recognized upon entry.

Needless to say, a new set of training courses for policemen would include "Comparative Religions" (namely, that all religions are equally valid, except of course for Christianity, which is suspect), and the appropriate prayers and blessings for going into houses of worship and arresting people.

As an aside, whatever happened to the old custom of Sanctuary (the accused was secure from arrest if he managed to get into a cathedral)?

Obviously, the way to insure "separation of church and state" (do you have that policy over there?) is to require that policemen may not enter churches, and likewise, clerics may not enter Parliament or city councils or run for office.

"Political correctness is communist propaganda writ small. In my study of communist societies, I came to the conclusion that the purpose of communist propaganda was not to persuade or convince, nor to inform, but to humiliate; and therefore, the less it corresponded to reality the better. When people are forced to remain silent when they are being told the most obvious lies, or even worse when they are forced to repeat the lies themselves, they lose once and for all their sense of probity. To assent to obvious lies is to co-operate with evil, and in some small way to become evil oneself. One's standing to resist anything is thus eroded, and even destroyed. A society of emasculated liars is easy to control. I think if you examine political correctness, it has the same effect and is intended to. "

I was cut up whilst driving by a woman wearing a slit eyed hijab she didn't see me. When I contacted the police I was told it was legal because it was a requirement of her religion.I disputed this the requirement being modesty not anti sand storm garb. I then asked if I wore a white robe with eye holes and a pointy hat as a Christian Knight of the Ku Klux Klan and drove around in a pick up truck as part of my religious belief would it be alright. I was told I would be immediately arrested and charged with incitement to racial hatred!

A friend of mine was witness to a road accident. He had to go to the police station to make a formal statement "in your own words, please".He stated that the driver of the offending vehicle was "wearing a head-dress which only allowed her to look out of a letter-box shaped slit, and that in his view her sideways vision was severely limited"The police obviously didn't like "his own words" and refused to accept the statement without change and my friend refused to alter it on the grounds that what he said was what he saw in his own words.Deadlock, but the solicitor for the other party was happy with it when claiming damages!

The politicians who ignore along with police force in question here, and the rest of the PC brigade are guilty of the repression and abuse of women and girls. Read "The Caged Virgin" by Ayaan Hirsi Ali.

When I visited very small orthodox churches in Crete, women were asked to put on smock-like garments and even cover their heads with scarves. But only while going inside the holy places. I found that totally acceptable, even reverent.

But outside - as anywhere else in the 21st century, it's Liberty Hall. Maybe not always a good idea, but that's certainly the norm in the UK. And anyone who wants to live here has to respect that - not expect us to respect what they have fled from in their home states.

It's such a no-brainer. Just get rid of all these mindless committees and quangos, costing us all an absolute fortune, and let the electorate decide what is and is not the acceptible norm for our society.

The sad thing is that this New Labour pseudo-philosophy is making me think like a Fascist. Which I am absolutely not. But I regret the loss of the society I valued. Quo vadis ?

In The Loved One, I think it was, Evelyn Waugh poked fun at the idea of a “non-denominational minister of religion”, which he evidently saw as a contradiction in terms. There has been progress since Waugh’s day. Are we perhaps on our way now to having multifaith ministers of religion? Leading prayers and preaching sermons at mosques, churches and synagogues alike – two or three public figures spring to mind for whom that would be a tempting career opportunity.

Janice -"The sad thing is that this New Labour pseudo-philosophy is making me think like a Fascist." Something's happening to my reactions, too. I don't think I'm fascist, though. Like you, I just want to retrieve and defend everything I value - that's conservatism, not fascism. It's also a natural reaction, and one the British have had from time immemorial.

I believe that authoritarianism and Enforcement by people who are supposed to serve - not beat the 'electorate' into shape - also compounds those reactions. I never had anything against mozzies until i) they invaded and set about us ii) the authoritarian twerps (at home and abroad) said we had to lie down and take it. And then set about removing all the hard won and carefully developed systems that safeguarded our freedoms and rights.

Miss non mouse is right.We just want to be left in peace.I don'tunderstand why those responsibledidn't envisage the problems weare having with the moslems.Just about everyone I know predicted this would happen.The islamic culture does not fit harmoniouslywith the west.I am opposed to thewearing of the burka in public.Itis frightening to small children and the elderly.

I assume, when you refer to "crime", that you are talking about criminal offences on the statute book, as opposed to civil wrongs.

You seem to be still under the illusion (as so many still are) that the brief given to the Police in Nu-Lab Britain is to prevent and solve this type of "crime".

This project, which we naively assumed would be ongoing, and which from 1829 up until recently, served us well, was long ago superseded by the requirement to prevent and bring to justice the perpretrators of selected types of crime, some of which have yet to be put on the statute book (but it won't be long before they are): These "provisional" crimes - which the police now regard as their priorities, are as follows:

Homophobia

Christianity

Judicial Racism (ie remarks which fall outside the remit of the race-hate statutes but can reasonably or unreasonably be interpreted as derogatory to anybody non-white)

Sexism

Advocacy of inequality of outcome (i.e. the sentiment that you reap what you sow, or get what you deserve, for those who don't like biblical analogies)

Expressions of anti-determinism (closely linked to advocacy of inequality of outcome). This means basically that it will soon be a crime to express the notion that people should be held responsible for their own actions or omissions. It's all in the genes, you see, or failing that, the fact that you are black, homosexual, or live on a council estate, and have been shat on from a great height by nasty white neo-imperialist middle class men, most of whom are probably paedophiles to boot.

Traffic offences committed mainly by white males (eg speeding)

As a result of this new prioritisation, resources have been diverted away form prevention and solution of the following crimes:

About His Grace:

Archbishop Cranmer takes as his inspiration the words of Sir Humphrey Appleby: ‘It’s interesting,’ he observes, ‘that nowadays politicians want to talk about moral issues, and bishops want to talk politics.’ It is the fusion of the two in public life, and the necessity for a wider understanding of their complex symbiosis, which leads His Grace to write on these very sensitive issues.

Cranmer's Law:

"It hath been found by experience that no matter how decent, intelligent or thoughtful the reasoning of a conservative may be, as an argument with a liberal is advanced, the probability of being accused of ‘bigotry’, ‘hatred’ or ‘intolerance’ approaches 1 (100%).”

Follow His Grace on

The cost of His Grace's conviction:

His Grace's bottom line:

Freedom of speech must be tolerated, and everyone living in the United Kingdom must accept that they may be insulted about their own beliefs, or indeed be offended, and that is something which they must simply endure, not least because some suffer fates far worse. Comments on articles are therefore unmoderated, but do not necessarily reflect the views of Cranmer. Comments that are off-topic, gratuitously offensive, libelous, or otherwise irritating, may be summarily deleted. However, the fact that particular comments remain on any thread does not constitute their endorsement by Cranmer; it may simply be that he considers them to be intelligent and erudite contributions to religio-political discourse...or not.

The Anglican Communion has no peculiar thought, practice, creed or confession of its own. It has only the Catholic Faith of the ancient Catholic Church, as preserved in the Catholic Creeds and maintained in the Catholic and Apostolic constitution of Christ's Church from the beginning.Dr Geoffrey Fisher, Archbishop of Canterbury, 1945-1961

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